Tony Blair: What Will Happen With Extremists When Gitmo Closes?

It's understandable for President Barack Obama to plan to close the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday, but Blair wonders what will happen with other extremists as violence climbs around the world.

"The U.K. government asked for that as well," Blair told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" show. "But in the end, the real issue is what we do with these large numbers of radical extremists who are going to be causing trouble all over the world."

Blair and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced earlier this week that they plan to launch a commission on violent extremism, with the aim to help the next presidential administration and leaders in Europe counter Muslim radicalization, reports The Washington Post. 

He told the Fox News program that the problems with extremism are not only occurring in the Middle East, but in "our own communities," and there have been some people returned to the United Kingdom from Guantanamo.

"This extremism, it's growing," Blair said. "It's affecting the development of countries, it's disrupting societies, causing chaos across the Middle East, which is one of the most important arenas of the world."

But he said his "real passion" is not to only persuade people that there are not only armies of hostile extremists wanting to wage attacks, but "it's tens of millions who follow an ideology that is deeply hostile to the west and based on what I would say is a perversion of Islam."

Blair also spoke about U.S. politics and the contentious race for the White House, and said that people in his country are also angry and "want to rattle the cage of the people in power. I understand that. But in the end, you need answers, not just anger."

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